Multiregional Evolution: a theory that suggests modern humans evolved from individual populations of Homo erectus throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa during the middle of the Pleistocene epoch. Its supporters claim that premodern humans, Homo erectus, migrated from Africa to Europe and Asia and that gene flow amongst these population is responsible for the evolution of modern Homo sapiens (Jurmain, Kilgore, Trevathan, and Ciochon, 2013). This theory was developed by Wolpoff and his colleagues in the 1980s and is a topic they continue to explore today (2000). There are many who discredit this theory though. They believe that the multiregional model does not prove how all of these separate populations remained genetically similar to one another if they all evolved separately. The works of Pearson (2004) and Stringer and Andrews (1988) explore this opposing view to the multiregional model. Wolpoff, the founder of the multiregional theory, spends the majority of his essay discrediting those who oppose this theory. He expresses the idea in his article, “Multiregional, Not Multiple Origins,” that those who discredit the multiregional theory do not truly understand it. This is explained when he writes,
“For whatever reason, there has been a continued pattern of misinterpreting or incorrectly describing multiregional evolution.” (Wolpoff et al. 2000)
He discusses the work of Chu et al. and how they determined the multiregional theory to be false after studying ancient Chinese populations. When confronted about the lack of genetic evidence to support the multiregional theory, Wolpoff responded that there is a lack of genetic evidence to oppose the theory. He writes,
“No time has been found at which every genetic locus resides in a single African population.” (Wolpoff et al. 2000)
By saying this, Wolpoff means that one cannot prove that all of the uniquely human genes
Culture, Not Race, Explains Human Diversity, Mark Nathan Cohen, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 17, 1998, pp.B4-B5. The term race refers to a biological subdivision of a species. At one time, scientists held that there were as few as three such subdivisions in the species Homo sapiens: Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid. Mark Anthony Cohen points out that this is an antiquated view, yet it lingers as a common belief in society. Mark Nathan Cohen makes an interesting point in his article “Culture, Not Race, Explains Human Diversity”. While the article does deal wholly in the realm of the opinion, it is supported by numerous scientific facts. In fact, Cohen’s usual method of drawing in a reader is to make a blanket statement and then “beef it up” with several scientific facts.
To set the stage, we must go back 270 million years ago when a majority of the earth’s land masses were collected together in a single continent, a supercontinent, named Pangaea (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1). Historian Alfred Crosby explained that this collected all of earth’s land based biology into a single place, creating a single Darwinian “arena for competition” (Crosby, 1). Or in other words, one big evolutionary pot. Crosby also explains that 180 million years ago, Pangea split into two major land masses, what is now the Americas in the Western Hemisphere as one land mass and Euro-Asia and Africa as the second lass mass (Crosby, 1). What was once a single evolutionary pot, was now two, allowing for plant and animal life to take different evolutionary paths. These two worlds remained relatively separate from each other until the arrival of Christopher Columbus and other European explorers. That contact between the old world and the new world brought two distinct evolutionary arenas crashing into each other and returned a majority of the earth’s landmass into a single Darwinian pot, (Crosby, 1) This was Crosby’s re-knitting of the torn “seams of Pangaea.”
Sterling, Robin L. "Genetic Research among the Havasupai—A Cautionary Tale." Virtual Mentor. American Medical Association, Feb. 2011. Web. 08 Jan. 2014. .
In 1758 a Swedish botanist named Carolus Linnaeus established the classification system still in use for various forms of life. He listed four categories that he labeled as "varieties" of the human species. To each he attributed inherited biological as well as learned cultural characteristics. He described Homo European as light-skinned, blond, and governed by laws; Homo American was copper-colored and was regulated by customs; Homo Asiatic was sooty and dark-eyed and governed by opinions; Homo African was black and indolent and governed by impulse. We can in retrospect recognize the ethnocentric assumptions involved in these descriptions, which imply a descending order of prestige. Most striking is the labeling of the four varieties as governed by laws, customs, opinions, and impulse, with Europeans on the top and Africans at the bottom. In fact, different populations within all four varieties would have had all four forms of behavior. (8).
Homo sapiens eventually migrated out of Africa to Eurasia, and replaced all other human populations, without interbreeding. Some of the replaced populations are believed to be the Neanderthals and the Homo erectus. The second theory proposes that modern human evolution happened through emigration, this is known as the multiregional evolution model. This model assumes that modern humans have an ancient rather than a recent African origin. This theory also talks about how all living humans derive from the species Homo erectus that left Africa nearly two million years ago.
According to rationalwiki,“Multiregionalism or the Multiregional Evolution (MRE) hypothesis is a model of Pleistocene human evolution, which argues the human species emerged in Africa 2 million years ago, and developed their modern forms in every area of the Old World.” This specific theory states that modern humans came from different ancestors that were descendants of a more common ancestor, Homo erectus. According to this theory, Neanderthals are only an ancestor of some Homo sapiens today, around the Europe area, and not the ancestors of Homo sapiens from other parts of the globe. The evidence for this, explained by American Institute of Biological Science, are facts such as that after each region 's common ancestor, there was a lot of interbreeding that caused the one Homo sapien species today. That being said, the excess of interbreeding this theory suggests, assumes that that is the primary causation for why modern day Homo sapiens don’t look different from each other despite having different
...e single origin perspective but not the multiregional perspective (1988). For example, the first appearance of Homo sapiens raises problems. The newest fossils of Homo sapiens were discovered in Africa while Europe, the Far East and Australia have the oldest fossils (Stringer & Andrew 1988). If there was one linearly evolving species we should see the oldest fossils in Africa. Also, Although Europe and southwest Asia have the most complete fossil record there is an absence of Neanderthal and modern Homo sapiens transitional fossils, which goes against the idea that species evolved together (Stringer & Andrew, 1988). The fossils better describe the single origin perspective.
There are several major haplogroup types that define different populations. From Africa came L0, L1, L2, and L3 haplogroups. Haplogroups M and N arose from the L3 line, and these populations migrated. The haplogroup M lineage can be found in Asia and gave rise to lineages C, D, G, Q, and Z, while the haplogroup N lineage predominantly moved to Europe, and gave rise to haplogroup A, I, W, X, and R. R eventually became the root of European haplogroups B, F, H, J, T, U, and P . While these account for the major haplogroup types, there are also a plethora of sub-haplogroups that have arisen from each major haplogroup type (Stewart & Chinnery,
Neves, A. M., & Serva, M. (2012). Extremely Rare Interbreeding Events Can Explain Neanderthal DNA in Living Humans. Plos ONE, 7(10), 1-10. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0047076
If they had only recessive genes, there would be no dark eyed, haired or skinned people. This leads to the conclusion that all people have a black ancestor. This is backed up by the well-accepted idea that Africa was the starting place of humanity. As African species travelled north to Europe they made the previous inhabitants extinct.
One of the most hotly debated issues in Anthropology focuses on the origins of modern humans. There are two theories about the origin of modern human, one being that modern humans originated in Africa and the second being that pre-modern humans migrated from Africa to become modern humans in other parts of the world. While both theories originate in Africa, most evidence points to the first theory, the Out of Africa Model. The amount of fossils of modern-like humans that are found in Africa, DNA studies suggesting a founding population in Africa, and stone tools and other artifacts are just some of the evidence that supports the Out of Africa Model.
The majority of scientific work in genetics and genomic sequencing has been done in the last 155 years. In 1859, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species where he proposed evolution by natural selection. Evolution is the change of inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations.Yet, the principals of genetics required to explain how characters are ...
There is a lot of evidence to support the theory of evolution and that geography has an effect on the evolution of species. Many scientists have proved that evolution does occur and that species do change over a period of time
Zacherl, Danielle. “Biology 171 Evolution and Biodiversity.” National Association of Research in Science Teaching 2007 Annual Meeting, New Orleans LA. (2007):n. page. Print.
Different human populations live in clusters over wide geographical regions and show wide differences in socio-cultural attributes. The biology of a population is governed by a complex interaction of environmental and genetical factors. The genetic constitution of a population in interaction with environment ...